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Celtic Music in Italy

© Stephen William Gray

Alfredo De Pietra, a G.P. who lives in Palermo and writes for Keltica magazine, gives an insight into the popularity of Celtic music in Italy..

SG: When and how did you get involved in Celtic music?

ADP: In the mid 1970s I casually discovered the recordings of the great John Renbourn and Pentangle, and from there my interest in fingerpicking guitar and folk music began. Above all, I liked the English styles of the 1960s and 1970s (Davey Graham, who I happened to meet in London in 1980, and Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, Martin Simpson...). Also around 1976, through a trailer for a French-Italian movie starring the late Fred Astaire, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Noiret, Peter Ustinov and Agostina Belli ("Un taxi mauve", released in the USA as "The Purple Taxi") and the commercial TV ad of a brand of chocolate, I discovered the magic of that immense patrimony of popular traditions that is Irish music. Both the songs ("Drowsy Maggie" and "Mna na hEireann") were by the Chieftains, the most important group of Irish music. Since then I have collected all (I believe) the disks of this unbelievable band of musicians. Putting guitar and Irish music together I discovered guitarists like Pierre Bensusan, Paul Brady, Andy Irvine, Dick Gaughan, Martin Carthy, fingerpicking and open tunings. Also, I discovered groups like De Danann, Planxty, Clannad...

SG: How big is the interest in Celtic music in Italy? Is it localised, or is it popular throughout the country?

ADP: Very interesting question...I think that first of all a division in various "regional" styles of Celtic music is necessary: after all, Galician music has more diversities than common points with Scottish music...now, in Italy "historically" Celtic music is identified mostly in Irish music. There are many Irish bands very popular here, and only a few are "not Irish": I think for instance of the Galician Carlos Nunez, the Bretons Dan Ar Braz and Alan Stivell, the Scottish Battlefield Band and Deaf Shepherd... Anyway, with these premises, Celtic music is always very popular here in Italy, but some differences have to be underlined. The northern regions of the Country often have a Celtic origin too, so in the North of Italy there is a strong movement of research of these origins, often linked with a passion for this music too. These topics are instead absolutely marginal in the centre and south of Italy, where the love for Celtic music is more "neutral": this doesn't mean that it's less sincere, though!

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